


Spectrum

by Luana Araceli (Luana_Araceli)



Series: Works within the Spectrum Universe [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: BDSM, BDSM Universe, D/s, Dom/sub, Dominance, M/M, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Story - Freeform, Power Dynamics, Submission, Total Power Exchange, bdsm world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-12-16 23:43:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11839503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luana_Araceli/pseuds/Luana%20Araceli
Summary: In a futuristic world, Spectronics is used to determine who is Dominant and who is Submissive. Journalism is a dominant-leaning field. Despite that, Geoff is determined to procure an internship with one of the world’s top reporters, Leon Marcs, so that he can fix the flaws in the system. The inexplicable draw he feels towards his new boss is the last thing he expects.Special Note: You can buy this off Smashwords for $1.99 if you're so inclined. Since I published it about four years ago, I'm putting it up here for everyone to enjoy, as I know how hard it can be to find even a few extra dollars.





	1. Chapter One

Leon paced the office, waiting for Ryan to finish his interview. The trip to France had been decently successful, but he had his worries about the government allowing Spectrum scientists the funds they’d need. That, however, wasn’t his concern today.

No, what concerned him was the memo he’d seen on his desk as soon as he’d walked back into the offices of Spectrum Global. There was no way someone with a schedule as busy as his was going to be asked to take care of two interns for a year. No way in hell.

As the lead journalist at SG, he had rights. And one of those rights said he was allowed to refuse internships. Ever since he’d begun working at SG, in 3033-over 10 years ago-he’d never been forced to take on an intern. Never intended to take one on, either. He’d seen what they’d done to the journalists around him. They were a nuisance, a hindrance. Half of them couldn’t even pour coffee correctly and the other half were so determined they were right about everything that it was impossible to teach them the true purpose of being a journalist for SG. So no, he wasn’t taking on an intern. Ryan would have to shoot him first.

Ryan walked out of the office, done with the interview, and raised an eyebrow at the aggressive stance Leon was taking. “Are we going to fight?” he asked, tone amused. He was one of the most laid-back Editors in the newspaper world, but that didn’t mean his journalists walked all over him. He knew where to draw the line.

Leon scowled and switched to a less threatening pose. Ryan was his boss. To have a boss didn’t sit well with any dominant, and Leon was no exception. But the reality was that there was always someone more dominant, and they got the higher paying jobs. Ryan wouldn’t be the Editor-in-Chief if he wasn’t the most dominant man in the building, his tolerant personality aside. “No, sir.”

“Good. Shall we talk?”

“Please.”

Ryan led the way back into the office he’d just vacated and shut the door, leaving him and Leon alone. “I take it you saw the memo.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You object?”

“Of course I object!” Leon fought to keep his tone even after the outburst. He didn’t want to start an unnecessary challenge in the office. “I haven’t taken on an intern in the eleven years I’ve been here.”

“No,” Ryan agreed. “You haven’t.”

“So why now?” Leon asked. “Why do I suddenly need to take two of them on? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Ryan looked down with a small frown before he met Leon’s eyes, chocolate eyes swimming in sympathy but firm, too. There would be no quarter here. “Because Anthony Miller has made it policy for all journalists to take on an intern every five years and is requiring all those journalists who have worked here for more than five years to meet the new policy by taking on 2-3 interns apiece.”

Leon swallowed. Anthony Miller. The owner of Spectrum Global. What was the sudden interest in interns? “Miller wants me to take interns?”

“Yes.” Ryan’s eyes softened. “I know how much you hate working with them.” 

Leon sighed. “No, Ryan, you have no idea. The last time I worked with an intern I was 17. I don’t relish the idea of working with them again.”

“No, I suppose not. That was when you were helping your father with the Spectronics research, right?”

“Yeah. It was interesting work, except-

-for the interns. Yeah, I know. You’ve told me multiple times.”

Leon smiled grimly. “If I have to take two interns, I want to interview all the potential candidates myself. I’m not going to accept whoever you want to throw me. No offense.”

Ryan’s eyes darkened. “If I wanted to throw you an intern, you’d have no choice but to accept it. Since I value your journalistic instincts, however, I’ll allow you your interviews. But Leon?”

Leon swallowed, averting his eyes. “Sir?”

“Nothing.” Ryan smiled winningly. “I trust I’ll see you with two interns by the end of the week.”

Leon sagged against the door as Ryan left the room. He’d come within a hairs-breadth of actually challenging his boss to a dominance duel and had only escaped it because of Ryan’s tolerant personality. And the way he’d ended their conversation—yeah, Leon was close to being on thin ice

His hands shook slightly as he walked back to his desk and he forced his mind to other thoughts. Interns. Well, one thing was for sure. He wasn’t going to accept a know-it-all as an intern or an intern with no ability to think for himself either. Also, he was rather partial to men. Women got on his nerves, and while gender discrimination was a crime, it wasn’t like he was going to refuse to hire a woman if she was the best choice—he was just going to make damn sure that the best choices he had were men.

 


	2. Chapter Two

Geoff lounged on his bed, surfing the intranets through his holoscreen computer. There was nothing of true interest to read, though the top articles from the three main Spectronics newspapers were always good for a few minutes of entertainment.

Daily Dynamics had an article about a family of all dominants trying to figure out the best way to set a table that could be considered amusing, but Geoffrey found it droll. Of course a family of dominants would have trouble figuring that out because they’d all be fighting the instinct not to tell the other what to do. Avoiding dominant duels in a dominant family had to be next to impossible.

He shut that web-page down with a snort of disgust. If dominants had such a difficult time with other dominants, why was the economy skewed in their favor? All the lucrative jobs were given to dominants while submissives got the more menial jobs because they were “better-suited.”

Geoff rolled his eyes. The man who’d come up with the idea that dominants were better-suited to some jobs than submissives had never met an ambitious submissive. Oh well. Time to check the Hierarchy Highlights.

The only halfway decent article in the Double H was one about a new species of foxes discovered in Montana that were Spectronic, but in an unusual way. The dominants deferred to the submissives except during mating habits, where the submissives deferred to the dominants. It was enough to spark a “huh” of interest, but it wasn’t fascinating. There were two or three other species like that, so

it wasn’t that amazing.

Geoff frowned, rolling onto his side as he closed out of that web-page too. He touched the bookmark bar at the top of his screen and dragged his finger down to “Spectrum Global.” He hadn’t checked the articles there in a few weeks-he’d been too disheartened when his intern application hadn’t resulted in a callback for an interview.

Spectrum Global was his favorite newspaper. It answered questions the others shied away from and wasn’t afraid to ask new questions. It was a progressive science paper through and through and Leon Marcs was the best journalist Geoff had ever had the pleasure to read. His articles were brilliantly written. It was impossible to read one of Marcs articles and not see the beauty of Spectronics in action.

Even if Geoff disagreed with how Spectronics had changed society—he felt things were backwards and that submissives should be offered more lucrative jobs, considering the dominant’s creed in America was the protection of submissives---he couldn’t fault Marcs for the articles he wrote. And there was no telling what the man believed about America’s cultural Spectronics, because he wrote about other  countries. In fact, the last article Geoff had read by Marcs had mentioned that the man was planning on traveling to France. Maybe there’d been an article published.

Excitement bubbled up but conflict raged inside him. This was the paper that had refused to give him a callback interview. Which may or may not have had anything to do with his status as a submissive, but probably did as journalists were generally dominant. Journalism was a dangerous field, when extensive traveling was involved, but Geoff hadn’t wanted anything in his life as much as he’d wanted a chance to intern with Leon Marcs.

Knowing a new article about France might be out almost put that hurt out of his mind. After all, it wasn’t like Marcs went through the applicants himself. That was handled by the secretaries of the Editor-in-Chief, who would have pushed any submissive applicants to the back of the pile. It was only to be expected, after all.

He sighed. He really wanted to read the article, but he didn’t want to see the SG logo flashing across his screen considering how recent the silent rejection had been. He scrunched his nose. “Hell with it,” he muttered, and tapped the link twice.

The SG logo flared to life on his screen and he scanned the first page hurriedly, looking for Marcs' name. He scanned so fast, in fact, that he nearly missed the name near the bottom of the page. Seeing it, he scrolled to the top of the article and couldn’t contain a little squeal of glee as he settled in to read.

 

_The Spectronics of the French_

_~Leon Marcs_

 

_The French aren’t known for their warmheartedness. In fact, smiling at a Frenchman is enough to lose their respect as well as the willingness they may have had to talk to you. Despite that, I managed to wrangle an interview from one of the few Spectronic scientists in the country, Dr. D’allaird. He parted with the French notions of Spectronics as if I were asking him for the secrets of Parliament, which is on par for the French._

_I learned, slowly, that the French regard Spectronics as a ‘silly science,’ the same way Americans regard astrology. It is an indulgence, a pastime for the rich and eccentric to dabble in, but it is not accepted as genuine science. While I have come across this belief in other countries, nowhere have I found Spectronics as unwelcome as I have in France. It took many long, arduous sessions with the French government to convince them that Spectronics was a science worth pursuing. Showing them proof of America’s progress through Spectronics was not enough to convince them. In fact, I had to arrange a meeting between a French politician and an American pair that have asked to be left nameless so that he might witness Spectronics in action._

_It was only after witnessing such a union between a spectron pair that the French government decided that Spectronics was worth funding, though I have my doubts that they will provide the funds the French truly need to advance significantly in the field._

 

Geoff hmm’d thoughtfully at the end of the article. It was written in Marcs usual style of prose, but he could feel the tenseness throughout the writing. France really hadn’t agreed with the man, and Geoff couldn’t really blame him. France wasn’t the nicest country in the world.

He’d know. Not only was he fluent in French, but he’d been there on at least ten separate occasions for some of his mother’s social get-togethers. Sometimes having rich parents really sucked. At least after he’d hit 20, his mother had stopped dragging him to all the socialite gatherings she attended. He had no interest in them and had finally managed to make that clear to her. She’d seemed upset at first, but then decided it had to be because of his submissive gene. It was generally accepted that submissives weren’t social people unless they were paired. Whether that was a fact or not had never been tested, but Geoff thought it was mostly accurate.

He had friends who were paired and the only time they went to anything social was when it was to attend with their dominant partner. If they weren’t going out with them, then they stayed at home. But Geoff wasn’t like that. It wasn’t the social part of the parties that disinterested him. It was the conversation.

No one at those parties talked about anything that mattered. It was all fashion and gossip and stupidly vapid. Geoff had had his fill of stupid, vapid people. That’s why he’d applied to the Spectrum Global. He didn’t need to work—he’d inherited over 500 million dollars on his 18th birthday—but he wanted to travel the world doing something important.

With 500 million dollars, he could travel the world on his own, but that wasn’t what he was looking to do. He wanted to see the world from the forefront of Spectronics and help change the world. He believed in Spectronics. It was good, it was the perfect science and it explained everything down to a fault.

The only problem with it was that America had parts of it backwards. They needed to elevate submissives more in order to truly demonstrate to the rest of the world how powerful Spectronics was because right now it wasn’t giving the world a proper demonstration.

Right now it was showing Spectronics in an okay light, but there was some streaks in that light, where the submissives who were supposed to be revered were instead being cast down into the lowest rungs of the social ladders. If America truly wanted to showcase Spectronics, what they needed to do was change the lower paying jobs into high paying ones so that submissives who worked them didn’t have to worry about whether or not they could put food on the table. Make some dominant jobs less lucrative, like accountants, and submissive jobs, like waitressing, more so.

Geoff shrugged and turned off his holoscreen computer. He’d read the only things on the net he was interested in reading. Now he had to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life, since interning with Leon Marcs was out of the question. Maybe he could do some of his own traveling, despite how he hated the idea. He could go to a country where the idea of Spectronics had never been introduced and see what it was like to live spectron free.

 


	3. Chapter Three

 

Leon sat at his desk, pouring over a stack of applications. So far he’d discarded forty; put 5 in the interview pile, and 2 in the maybe pile. Those maybe applications were both women and had less education and experience than the 5 in the interview pile.

He frowned. While he understood needing to pick an intern since he hadn’t utilized one in the eleven years he’d worked for Spectrum Global, it seemed a waste of time and effort. Sitting here going through this stack of 200 intern requests was taking the time from him that he could be using to research the countries he planned to travel to in the near future.

But he’d insisted on going through the applications himself, instead of allowing Ryan or the editor’s secretaries to make the selections for him, and he was paying that price now. It was well after 7pm and he should’ve left the office two hours ago. But he was determined to find the two best applicants in the pile if it took all night.

He sighed as he looked at the remaining pile. Still another 153 to go through and he was always thorough. That meant it took him twice as long when he went over an application as it did a secretary, who just checked the references, education, and employment history. Oh, and the spectrum identification of course.

So far, every application he’d gone through the spectrum mark had been a dominant, which made sense, considering journalism was considering a dominant profession. It was dangerous, traveling in different countries where you didn’t know the culture.

Leon snorted. He might not have a pairing yet, but if he did, he wasn’t sure he’d feel comfortable with his submissive partner traipsing around the world without some sort of protection. No wonder America had been such an aggressive country before Spectronics. So many submissives were sent on dangerous trips that it was amazing the dominants survived the agony of it.

Leon had never paired with anyone, but he’d experimented in school, like everyone else. He knew he preferred men to women—that was one prejudice that existed in all aspects of his life, both personal and professional—and that he was a protective, possessive bastard when he had a submissive in his care. Something he’d been told, quite often, by two or three submissives during the time they’d been together.

Settling back in his chair in an attempt to get comfortable, he decided to go to the back of the pile and work his way forward. If he hated the way the interns were here and the secretaries always picked them, it stood to reason that the ones he might be okay with would be at the back of the pile. He sighed wistfully at the forty-some applications he’d already sorted, wishing he would’ve thought of that early and saved himself some time.

Granted, there was no guarantee going from the back of the pile was going to save him any time or trouble, but it was worth a shot. So he flipped the stack of papers over and begin going through them. The first one was Jonah Matthews, who had graduated from John Hopkins University with an average GPA of 3.5.

His work experience wasn’t all-that, either. He’d interned for a couple of no-name papers before, and didn’t have much interest in the Spectronics field.

_Why did this guy even apply?_ Leon shook his head, exasperated. The entire paper was based around the Spectronics field. If he had no interest in it, there was no reason for him to even put in an application. But nearly all the applications he’d seen tonight had that type of flavor to them—people who only wanted to intern with him because of the prestige.

Annoyed, he almost slipped right by the next application. The only reason he didn’t miss it entirely was the spectron mark identifying the man as a submissive. What kind of submissive applied to a dominant –leaning job? It was a question Leon wanted the answer to and he didn’t bother reading the contents of the application until after he’d tossed it on top of the interview pile.

And once he read the application, he was even more determined to interview this Geoff. He graduated at the top of his class at Princeton, with a 4.0 GP while participating in dominant-leaning sports like basketball and wrestling. His references were sound—anyone who saw those names would know that. He had no experience to speak of, but that didn’t matter, because the thing that caught Leon’s attention the most was the “What will you bring to this job if offered it?” question and the way it was answered.

_Interesting __guy_ , Leon thought. First, he offers ten million dollars just for the chance to intern. He doesn’t require us to give him a job at all, despite the fact he’s wealthy enough to buy the entire company if he wants to. Second, he’s submissive and determined to be part of the dominant world. That was enough to decide him—Geoff was the first person he’d call in the morning for an interview, along with the other five in the stack. If none of them panned out, then he’d go through the rest of the stack.

But Leon was sure, as he left the office that night, that he’d found a sure prospect for one of the two interns he had to coddle for a year. His instincts were screaming at him, and, as a dominant, he knew better than to ignore them.


	4. Chapter Four

Geoff hadn’t managed to fall asleep until 4am, so when his holophone shrilled at him at 10am, he nearly fell out of bed in shock. _Who is calling me this fucking early?_ He didn’t bother to censor himself. Less than seven hours of sleep and no coffee? That was more than enough reason to be rude. He snatched the band off the nightstand and pressed the menu button, which doubled as an accept button when receiving incoming calls. “Hello?” he groused.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. Before Geoff could get up the ire to say something else, a mild voice said, “This is Leon Marcs. Is Geoffrey Thomas around, by any chance?”

Geoff almost dropped the phone and he had to cover his mouth to keep from screaming with shocked glee. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I’m Geoffrey.”

The tone on the other end grew amused. “Yes, well, I have your application for internship in front of me, Mr. Thomas. Are you available for an interview at noon? We can meet over lunch.”

Geoffrey swallowed audibly, his hands shaking as he tried to calm himself so he could talk properly to the man on the other end of the phone. “I-yes. I can do that. Lunch?” God, he felt dumb.

“Lunch,” Leon said, tone making it clear he was trying not to laugh. “I’ll pick you up at the listed address in an hour. Is that enough time?”

“Y-yes, sir,” Geoffrey managed. “That’s plenty.”

Leon laughed. “Very well. I’ll see you then.”

“Oh. Okay. See you then.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Thomas.”

“Bye, Mr. Marcs.” Geoffrey hung up the phone, trying to keep from hyperventilating. Leon Marcs had just called him about an interview for an internship. And asked him out for lunch. Granted, not for a date. But still. He was going to be doing lunch. With Leon Marcs. He didn’t bother to stifle his excited squeal as he ran into the bathroom to shower, suddenly feeling much more awake.

An hour later, Geoff was dressed in a black Armani suit, his shoulder-length dirty blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck. He was probably overdressed for a lunch interview, but this was Leon Marcs. In Geoff’s mind, there was no way he could be overdressed.

And even with the excitement he felt about meeting Leon Marcs, he kept reminding himself that hero worship was bad. That it would make him overestimate the man and he’d be let down, so he needed to lower his expectations. And he was trying...whether or not he was successful or not remained to be seen.

The doorbell chimed and Geoff gulped audibly. This was the most important moment in his life and how he handled it now was going to effect his future. No pressure or anything. The doorbell chimed again and he frowned. Where the hell had the butler gotten to?

He scowled. Tand was pretty good about answering the door, but sometimes he flaked off to go lay in the gardens. That is probably where he was right then, since 11 am on a Wednesday didn’t usually warrant many visitors.

The doorbell chimed a 3rd time and Geoff sprang into action. Letting anyone ring a doorbell more than 3 times was considered very bad form. So he ran the short distance from the bottom of the stairs to the door and swung it inwardly open right as Marcs hand came down to hit it a 4th time.

Marcs arched an eyebrow at him, sweeping an assessing eye over Geoff’s entire body, causing the submissive to flush from head to toe. “Geoffrey Thomas, I presume?”

Geoffrey swallowed mouth suddenly dry. “I. Yes, sir,” he said, somehow managing not to stammer more than that.

“Is there anywhere you’d prefer to dine, Mr. Thomas?” Leon asked, as he turned away to lead them to his car.

“I’m partial to sushi, but anywhere is fine,” Geoff said, grasping at anything that would give him a semblance of control. Being in the presence of his hero was making him feel like he was falling a thousand feet a minute without a parachute.

“Sushi it is,” Leon said, opening the passenger side door for his potential intern. “Any particular restaurant?”

Geoff flushed. “Anywhere is fine.” Suggesting the type was more than enough for him; as a submissive, he preferred fewer choices and so far Leon had given him two. It was throwing him even more off-balance, but a quick glance at the man told him it was improbable that the journalist was unaware of the effect he was having.

Leon settled in the driver seat and turned to look at Geoff. “These may be the last choices you have for a while, so I suggest you take advantage of them.”

Geoff swallowed convulsively at those words. Last choices in a while? What the hell did Marcs mean by that? It wasn’t like being accepted as an internship was agreeing to partner with the man—sure, it meant following basic directives, but other areas of his life were his own. “Excuse me?” he said, voice low. Oh. He was angry. Geoff hadn’t felt angry in a long time.

Leon winced. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong.”

“Did it?”

Leon moved his hand from the gear shift to the steering wheel, delaying their departure. He met Geoff’s eyes and said, “It did. I wouldn’t presume to treat you like anything more than an intern without your consent. What I meant by my statement was that the work I do is difficult and time-consuming, so there may not be many more opportunities to enjoy things like your favorite sushi restaurant.”

Geoff held eye contact with Leon for a long time, assessing the dominant’s sincerity. He had met plenty of dominants who’d assumed that because he was submissive it gave them free reign over them and he’d put them in their place pretty quick. Leon’s gaze never faltered, his eyes never lost their firmness or their sincerity, and Geoff gradually relaxed, allowing his eyes to fall to the side. A clear signal that he accepted Leon as dominant over him, even if he didn’t accept him as his dominant specifically.

“Glad we’ve got that settled,” Leon said, a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “Now, is there any sushi restaurant you prefer?”

Geoff felt the corners of his lips twitch up into a small smile as well, the relief he felt from finding that Marcs wasn’t the shallow dominant he’d nearly painted himself as nearly overwhelming. “It honestly doesn’t matter to me. Sushi is sushi.”

“Okay. Well, I know a quaint little place near the docks, so we’ll go there.” 

“Do you mean Maruyama’s Sushi Bar, by chance?” Geoff asked, unable to hide the excitement in his voice.

Leon smiled. “So you do have a favorite.”

Geoff had the grace to blush. “Not many people now about Maruyama’s,” he said, by way of admittance. “And it’s a bit out of the way.”

“Nonsense,” Leon said. “Out of the way doesn’t exist in my vocabulary. Consider the places I’ve been.”

Geoff gave an embarrassed laugh. “I don’t like to put people out.” 

Leon tapped a finger on the steering wheel, using the other hand to shift it into gear after he started the engine. “That’s the submissive in you talking,” he said. “But if you weren’t with me right now and going to eat sushi by yourself, where would you be going?”

“Maruyama’s,” Geoff admitted, flushing deep red. He didn’t like to think of questions in that context. He preferred to make the dominants around him happy so as to keep himself happy, but if he was going to be interning for Marcs, he had a feeling that was going to change, and soon.

“Good choice,” Leon said. “And I’d prefer it if you answer questions I ask you as if you weren’t worried about my opinion.”

Geoff squirmed in his seat. Of course Marcs would ask that of him-the hardest thing for a submissive to do was try to put their own needs first. “I’ll try,” he muttered, knowing better than to refuse outright to answer a dominant’s instructions.

Leon smiled. “Maruyama’s it is, then.” He took a right out of the driveway onto the main road.

From Geoffrey’s house, the sushi restaurant in question was about a five minute drive. There wasn’t going to be much time for the interview in the car, but it was giving him time to size his prospective intern up.

On Geoff’s part, he felt off-balance because he was in a car with Leon Marcs, headed to a sushi bar, of all places. And not just any sushi bar—his favorite sushi bar. That made a huge impact on him, considering how few dominants cared to get a submissive’s true feelings about any given subject. Most preferred to play at it—Leon was genuine.

The genuine aspect of Leon’s dominance was throwing Geoff for a loop, because none of the dominants he’d ever met had been genuine about anything except wanting to be in control of everything. And Leon wasn’t a loud dominant, like a lot of them were. He was quietly intense, which Geoff found enticing and threatening at the same time.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be inside that protective, possessive bubble that he could tell Leon possessed—especially after Leon’s too-dominant line earlier—or if he wanted to run as far as he could in the opposite direction.

So far, none of the dominants he’d bedded had been able to keep his interest long enough for him to consider pairing with them, nor had they been able to keep control of him. Geoff had a feeling that Leon wouldn’t have the same problem. But it was still early, so he could be reading too much into the man. After all, there was that hero worship thing to consider.

Still, it was noon on a Wednesday and he was headed to a sushi bar with his all-time favorite journalist. There wasn’t many ways in which life could be better.


	5. Chapter Five

 

Leon waited until they were seated at a fairly secluded table in the back of the restaurant before he started really examining the man in front of him. Sure, he’d seen a couple glimpses of his personality on the drive over, but nowhere near enough to give him a complete picture.

From the little he had seen, though, he knew Geoffrey wasn’t a pushover. Not by any means. That he’d reacted so negatively to a simple slip of the tongue told him that. Though honestly, it’d been a stroke of luck that Leon had even noticed his mistake. On the Spectrum scale, he possessed a gene that fell on an eight out of ten possible dominant scores. There weren’t many men above him when it came to dominance, so he rarely worried about dominance duels.

But the slip he’d made had been a bad one, if a submissive was sensitive to it, and it seemed Geoffrey was a sensitive man. Leon smiled. The best thing about Spectrum Science is that it had done away with the archaic notion that men who were sensitive were weak. It made social life much more enjoyable. Of course, the only reason he even knew about such an old-fashioned belief system was because of the research he’d helped his dad with—it had been vital to Spectronics and his father that Leon understand exactly what kind of society Spectrum had managed to push into a more progressive age.

He shook his head; he was here for an interview, but something about this submissive was getting him all tangled up in his head. He hadn’t had that experience in a few years—the last time had been at college, when he’d seen a submissive in a bar that he’d just had to have that night. It had been a fun night. He suppressed a grin; he didn’t want to explain its sudden appearance to a prospective intern.

Leon schooled his features and took a deep breath, trying to force himself to focus. He was here on business. Here, at a sushi bar, with an attractive submissive who was, without trying to, hitting all his buttons. He exhaled and took another deep breath, aware that Geoffrey was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. Leon shrugged, smiling. It was unlikely that Geoffrey would be able to get an accurate read off of him during their first meeting, though he might walk away from it thinking him incredibly weird. Something that was okay with Leon, because he couldn’t rightly insist he wasn’t weird. “Order whatever you like,” he said.

 

 

Geoffrey tapped the menu with a slender finger. “My favorite dish is over fifty dollars. I’d rather not ask you to pay that much for me.”

Leon whistled. Most of the dishes at Maruyama’s were twenty or more, but there were a few reserved for those clientele who could afford more. He watched Geoffrey’s face fall, before a mask was quickly erected to hide the disappointment he’d felt. Leon smiled to himself; so he was a Pleaser. Not all submissives were. “Which dish is it?” he asked. “Maybe they have something similar that’s less?”

Geoffrey frowned and purveyed the menu again. It was obvious to Leon as he did so that the man was intimately familiar with every dish on it and was only going through the listings again because he’d been asked to do so by a dominant. Yeah, he was definitely a Pleaser.

_What is a Pleaser doing looking for an internship into a dominant-leaning job? _Leon wondered. Pleasers tended to favor caretaking jobs, like nursing or teaching. It allowed them to make the dominants around them happy without endangering their livelihood or their well-being. He’d expected Geoffrey to be one of the Discontents, considering his favor of dominant-leaning sports. Discontents were submissives that ranked very low on the submissive scale and just barely missed the bottom of the dominant range on the Spectrum. They weren’t really comfortable with either dominance or submission and the old world word for them was Switches.

Discontents fit them better, because they weren’t happy submitting to a dominant or happy dominating a submissive. They just didn’t fit into the Spectron world, even though they fell somewhere on the Spectron scale. It was the one hiccup in Spectrum science that discontents existed at all.

And Leon had expected Geoffrey to be a Discontent, with the way he favored dominant-leaning sports and the fact he’d applied to a dominant-leaning job with nothing more than determination. He hadn’t expected the man to be a normal submissive and a Pleaser to boot. 

Pleaser was as far from Discontent as a submissive could get. They ranked the highest on the submissive scale, usually the eights through tens. No wonder the man was hitting Leon’s buttons. He was ranked around the same level on the opposite end of the Spectrum. Leon was going to have to be careful to avoid saying things like he had earlier because of that—after all, they weren’t paired. “Is there anything else on the menu you’d settle for?” Leon asked, pulling his mind away from Spectronics. Right now, he needed to focus on doing an interview for an internship. That was all that mattered. Not the way Geoffrey’s lips pursed in annoyance for a half-second before he smoothed his features. Now was not the time to get entranced with someone he might be working with!

“I will have whatever you do,” Geoffrey said. “There is no bad sushi.”

Leon suppressed his own annoyance. He wasn’t Geoffrey’s dominant, so he couldn’t insist that the man be honest with him about miniscule matters like his food preferences. “Very well,” he said, and in an effort to keep his temper in check, he changed the subject. “So, tell me, why did you apply for an internship with me?” All the applications he’d gone through last night had been the ones where the applicants had specifically requested to intern under him.

Geoffrey took a sip of the water he’d ordered when they’d been seated, in a visible effort to calm his nerves. “I’ve been reading your articles in Spectrum Global for five years. The SG, out of the three Spectrum newspapers, is the one I find the most willing to explore the science and ask the questions that need to be asked. Out of all the journalists at the SG, your articles are the most controversial, because you’re the only one who has successfully implemented Spectronics in other countries.”

Leon had heard most of this before; in fact, he’d done 3 interviews before he’d called Geoffrey because he hadn’t been able to sleep and had used those interviews as a means to calm his own nerves before approaching a submissive interested in interning in such a dominant-leaning field.

“And?” he asked, suppressing a smile as Geoffrey flushed.

“And I’ve been interested in Spectronics for years, because there are elements in America’s society that I feel have been handled incorrectly. I applied for an internship for the chance to see other countries and cultures to see how they have applied Spectronics or how they may choose to apply the science in the future.” 

Leon sat back in shock. Handled incorrectly? He’d found American’s implantation of Spectrum science one of the best in the world. Granted, he had seen countries where Spectronics had caused the country to regress into slave countries, where submissives were subjected to gross maltreatment. America was the one country he hadn’t worried about before.

“I see I’ve shocked you,” Geoffrey murmured across the table. “It wasn’t my intention to do so.”

The concern in his voice stirred Leon out of his trance-like shock.

“No, it’s quite alright,” Leon said. “I have just never given serious consideration to America’s Spectrum implementation before. I’m sorry, but could you clarify for me what you find that America has handled poorly?”

Geoffrey’s eyes lit up—this was a topic he was passionate about, and being given an opportunity to express himself to someone in the Spectron world was a dream come true. “Certainly. There are a few things about the professional field, in general, that I feel Spectronics has handled poorly.”

Leon raised an eyebrow, suddenly understanding the motivation that had driven Geoffrey to seek out an internship with him. “And one of those is the segregation between dominant and submissive professional fields?”

Geoffrey flushed and averted his eyes, not sure if he was being mocked. “Yes, sir,” he said, voice quiet but determined. “There are submissives that are more qualified than dominants for some of the fields that are assigned the label dominant-leading.”

“An example, please.”

Geoffrey flushed again, but ducked his head in a small nod. Definitely a Pleaser if he was having this much trouble getting the words said.

Leon smiled. Pleasers were always pleasant to be around, and it was easy to be patient for them. It was the one thing they needed most, after all.

“For example,” Geoffrey said, “we’re sitting in a sushi bar where the wait staff is all submissive but the bartender is a dominant. I don’t disagree that submissives make for better wait staff, because they are more compassionate, but a dominant as a bartender is like asking for a fight. I understand the reason that bartenders tend to be dominant is to help prevent drunken brawls from escalating, but the second most important job a bartender does is talk to people and help them with their woes. Submissives are better suited for that. Bouncers are more than enough security for a bar, with a few well-timed signals from a submissive; they are more than capable of breaking up a fight without getting a bartender involved.”

Leon raised an eyebrow. “That was quite a mouthful,” he said, enjoying the way Geoffrey squirmed under his scrutiny. He couldn’t help teasing the man-he made it too easy. And it’d been a long time since he’d had fun teasing a submissive, even if it was on a strictly platonic level. “But I see where you’re coming from.”

And he did; Geoffrey had raised an interesting point. A bartender’s most important job was to help sort out the troubles of the alcoholics in the bar, to be a compassionate person with a shoulder to lean on. Dominants just didn’t have that type of patience. Even thinking about trying to bar-tend sent a shudder of revulsion through his body.

He turned back to Geoffrey. “There are other problems you’ve seen?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Geoffrey said, but didn’t elaborate. That was typical Pleaser behavior, though, so while Leon might find it a bit exasperating, he couldn’t exactly complain about it.

“I understand why you want to intern with me now,” Leon said, “but do you really understand the dangers you’d be subjecting yourself to?”

Geoffrey looked up, a flash of anger on his face that he quickly suppressed. He was a master of disguising his emotions, but being in the presence of a strong dominant meant it was more difficult to control his face. “I understand, sir,” he said, voice tight. “As I said, I’ve read all your articles for the past five years.”

“Then you understand that before I can accept you as an intern, I have to have the consent of your dominant partner, and if you’re not paired, I have to have the consent of your dominant parent.”

Geoffrey swallowed, anger rising in him. Of course he’d be subjected to that law, another stupid law to keep submissives from harm. Why couldn’t a submissive decide on their own path in life? He shook his head; now was not the time to throw a temper tantrum. This man was not his dominant, but he had no doubt that if he acted in such a childish manner the offer of internship would be retracted. 

Leon watched Geoffrey fight against himself to keep from a bad public reaction. His heart ached for the man; how hard it must be to be a submissive and barred from so much without a dominant’s acceptance. But while it might be hard, Leon knew—because science had proved it—that submissives were happier that way. Geoffrey was just a novelty.

“I understand, sir,” Geoffrey said, managing to keep his tone civil. “I have no pairing, so I’ll have my mother email you the appropriate forms this evening.”

Leon blinked. “You’re certain she’ll give her consent?" 

“Of course, sir. She is the one who suggested I apply, after all.” Geoffrey fell silent after that, picking at the food left on his plate.

Leon allowed the rest of the lunch to pass in silence and paid the bill, dropping Geoffrey back off at his house without trying to push the submissive into conversation. He could tell that the man was barely holding onto his temper, and he wasn’t going to do him the disservice of causing him to lose it before he got somewhere he could lose it in private.

After he dropped the man off, Leon headed back to the office. He had two more interviews lined up for that afternoon and a second intern spot to fill. He couldn’t afford to get caught up in worry about Geoffrey now.


	6. Chapter Six

Geoffrey managed, somehow, to make the walk from the car to the door without breaking into a run which was surprising, considering how close he was to throwing a tantrum on the front lawn. The only thing stopping him was that Marcs was watching, and he didn’t want his future boss seeing him acting so childish. Well, that and if he damaged any of his mother’s flowers, there would be hell to pay. He had no interest in raising her ire when he needed her to sign consent forms.

He snorted as he made his way to his room, where he threw himself on his bed, hands balling into fists. Fucking consent forms! Like he wasn’t over his majority. Like he couldn’t decide for himself what profession to pursue! If he’d put in an application to become wait staff somewhere, it would have been approved without the need of consent forms. 

 

His hands tightened, nails digging into the soft flesh of his palms. It was all because journalism was a dominant-leaning field. Without that distinction, the consent forms wouldn’t be necessary. He wouldn’t be required to provide a dominant’s consent for his inclusion into the field. It was stupid and unfair and it made him wonder how many people like him had been denied access to dominant-leaning fields because their dominants didn’t support them properly or because their dominant parent refused to allow them access into the dominant world.

Luckily, his mother wasn’t like that. She’d always been supportive of him, even more so than his father, which was weird, considering how high she ranked on the dominance end of the Spectrum. At a 9, she was the most dominant person he’d ever met, and he knew that 9s were too much for him. He shifted uncomfortably, wondering what level Leon Marcs ranked at. It was probably on the intranets—everything else was. But he didn’t want to dilute his opinion of the man by doing such a crass search—if Marcs wanted him to know, he’d tell him. Eventually. After all, it wasn’t like such a thing mattered for them to work together. 

Geoff sighed and picked up the phone. Might as well tell his mother now, so she could get her yelling over. While he hadn’t lied to Marcs—it had been his mother’s idea for him to apply—she hadn’t expected him to be interviewed or accepted. Now that he had, he hoped she’d be supportive enough to sign the consent forms. Without them, he’d be lost. Stuck in a meaningless life he’d gottena glimpse of a way out of.

She answered on the second ring. “Geoff? I’m in the library. Why don’t you come to me?” And hung up.

Geoff stared at the receiver in his hand. While he was used to his mother’s abrupt demands, it was unusual for her to insist on face-to-face meetings, especially when she was in the library. She loved to read, and for her to want him to interrupt in the middle of that...it was a little foreboding.

He shook his head. It was probably nothing serious. He shimmied out of his Armani suit and replaced it with more comfortable lay-about clothes. There was no reason to be uncomfortable in the privacy of his home. There was no hurry to meet his mother, either. He’d learned a long time ago that a leisurely stroll was the best way to get anywhere; rushing didn’t accomplish anything. His parents were both strong purports of that. 

 

By the time he reached the library, his mother had finished with her book and was sitting in the armchair by the fake fireplace—her favorite place to read as well as her favorite place to hold important family discussions. Geoff swallowed hard; he wasn’t sure how, but he just knew his mother had heard about his interview with Marcs earlier.

“When were you going to tell me?” Tara asked. “I’ve been worried sick since I heard.”

“Mother, I was calling to tell you right when I got home.” 

She raised an eyebrow at him, making no move to get out of the chair. If she moved, Geoff wouldn’t be able to get away fast enough. “You should have told me before you left. You know better than this. What have I told you about leaving this house with unknown dominants?”

Geoff winced. His mother was very good at making him feel like a child-she should be, considering her ranking on the dominance scale. “I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t believe Leon Marcs fell into the unknown category.”

She uncrossed her legs. Oh, so not a good sign. “Had you ever met him before?”

“No, ma’am.” There was no hesitation in his answer. Geoffrey didn’t want to piss his mother off any more than she already was. He only resorted to honorifics when he knew he was in trouble and that trying to get out of it was just going to make things worth.

She crossed her legs again and Geoff let out a silent breath of relief. He hated trying to figure out his mother; the slightest thing could set her off in this mood. “Then he was an unknown and you should have told me before you left.”

“Yes, ma’am. I wasn’t thinking.”

Her face softened. “Of course you weren’t, dear. He’s your hero, isn’t he? I’m not surprised you went off like you did. I don’t like it, but I’m not surprised.”

Geoff chanced a peek at her face. “You’re not mad?”

She laughed, then sobered quickly. “Of course I’m mad, Geoffrey. You disobeyed one of the few directives I’ve ever given you. I’m half-tempted to shred the consent forms I received in the email.” 

 

 

Geoff’s heart sank. She was more than entitled to do that, by law and by blood. He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said. “Please don’t take this chance away from me.”

She stood and Geoff had to fight the instinct to run from the room as she crossed it to where he stood, lifting his chin so that he was forced to meet her eyes. He couldn’t hold her gaze for more than a few seconds before his eyes slipped to the side—it was natural for a submissive to have trouble holding a dominant’s gaze. “Give me a solid reason for me to sign these forms, when we both know how dangerous the field of journalism can be.”

Geoff swallowed, barely managing a whisper when he answered. “It’s the only opportunity I’ll ever have to show the most influential man in the world the problems with America’s Spectronics implementation.”

“You do realize that he goes to other countries to implement the same system of Spectronics that America utilizes, don’t you, dear?” Tara’s tone was deadly calm.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m hopeful that once I have properly demonstrated the flaws in America’s system that he will find a better way to implement Spectronics in other countries; to show America its flaws by fixing them and sharing those fixes with the rest of the world.”

“And you also understand that as a submissive, you’ll get next to no credit if you’re successful?”

Geoff forced the bitterness inside him down. Of course he understood that! It was another reason he found America’s Spectronics so appalling. He clenched his fists by his sides. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re not okay with it, though.”

“Of course not,” he whispered. “But my pride is less important than the flaws being fixed.”

Tara released his jaw. “Okay,” she said, walking past him to the door. “Your reasons are still sound. I will sign the consent forms.”

“Still sound?” Geoffrey asked, puzzled. Nothing could have changed his reasoning. And then it dawned on him; he whirled to face his mother. “You thought I’d let him corrupt my thinking, Mother?” His tone was shrill and he wanted to take it back as soon as it came out of his mouth, but it was too late. His eyes widened and he clamped a hand over his mouth to prevent any further outburst. 

 

Tara started at him, slack-jawed. The last time her son had yelled at her like that had been over five years ago, when he’d found that he couldn’t go on a school trip to Yugoslavia because it was a dominant-only trip due to the dangers in the country.

Geoff didn’t wait for instructions; he fell to his knees, head bowed, hands clasped behind him. The traditional and immediate stance for a submissive awaiting punishment—one, that as a Pleaser, he didn’t find himself taking very often.

“Once I’ve recovered from the shock of you yelling at me, I’ll be back to discipline you,” Tara said. “I’ll not take your consent away, though your actions come close to warranting it.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Geoff whispered, voice hoarse. How the hell could he have been so stupid? Yelling at a dominant like that was taboo, and that it was his mother was beyond disgraceful. That she was still willing to give her consent was nothing short of a miracle.


End file.
